The great Oxford English Dictionary updates the big book every six months. But only at the mid-year update in June do they add new Australian words. This year (as they have just announced) the Oxford added 17 new Aussie words to its big book. Here are some of them:
Donkey vote—which first appeared in print in 1895. It springs out of our system of preferential voting. When someone doesn’t number the squares to show their preferred candidate, but instead just votes down the page indiscriminately, that’s thought of as a stupid way to vote, and donkeys are stupid, so it’s a ‘donkey vote.’
Branch stacking—only goes back to 1932 and names the practice of one faction in a political party signing up lots of new members to a party branch just before its time to preselect a parliamentary candidate. This ensures that their faction’s candidate wins the ballot.
Curly—in the sense of ‘a curly one.’ We’ve all used this to describe a challenging or difficult question or decision or situation. Recorded from 1942
Checkout chick—the Aussie nickname for the checkout operator. Although, quite frankly, there are fewer and fewer of them. These days we are all supposed to do our own checkouts (even though we are not on the staff of Colesworths!)
Flog—a person who overly studious, who think they’ve gone to uni to learn things, not just have fun and join in rowdy demonstrations. A recent one from 1969.
Dishlicker—a racing greyhound. This has been part of the Aussie language since 1972.
Grey nomads—those oldies (hey! Lay off the oldies!)—alright those Baby Boomers then, who retire, buy a caravan and travel Australia.
Snot block—the schoolboy slang for a vanilla slice. (Which schoolboys use, in order to make the adults around them say ‘Oh! Yuk! That’s horrible!’). The Oxford team have not found this in print until 1987. But it’s been around a lot longer than that. I remember using this when I was a schoolboy in short pants in the 1960s.
Mrs Kafoops—has finally made it into the dictionary. We’ve been using this since at least 1913 to name a woman whose name we’ve forgotten. Although it’s sometimes used to name a woman who is a bit up herself.
Well, that’s not the lot. But it’s enough. The Australian Language keeps making great contributions to world English!
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BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
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